From the New York Times:
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Arab leaders on Wednesday that the American occupation of Iraq was illegal and warned that unless Arab governments settled their differences, foreign powers like the United States would continue to dictate the region’s politics.
This is bad news for a number of reasons. The first is obvious — we’ve screwed up our foreign policy so badly over the last six years that even a country long committed to our stead and ruled by people who have business connections to the family of our president are bailing on us. The second is not so obvious — as the United States’ influence in the region wanes, the Saudis are emerging as leaders of the Arab League, and losing them may mean ceding the region completely.
